SACRAMENTO – As Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez reflected on his unlikely rise from a San Diego barrio to one of the state's most powerful offices, he recalled poignant, painful moments of a generation ago.

“I remember making friends with a kid in La Jolla – my father was a gardener there; my mother was a maid – and going over to the kid's home near the Sea Lodge.

“We were playing, and right as we were going to go inside and play with his toys, his mom came out and said to me: 'You have to wait outside. You can't come in,' ” Núñez said in an interview last week.

He said that memory came to mind four years ago as he welcomed his parents and other family members to his spacious new Capitol digs. No one could stop him from entering the speaker's office, Núñez thought. The sign outside had his name on it.

On Tuesday, facing term limits that barred him from seeking re-election in November, the Los Angeles Democrat gave up the highest-ranking political job in the Assembly and began pondering his future once he leaves office in December.

PROFILE

Fabian Núñez

Born: Dec. 27, 1966, in San Diego, the 10th of 12 children. Lived in Tijuana before returning to Logan Heights at age 7.

Residence: Los Angeles

Education: San Diego High School graduate, 1985. Attended University of California San Diego; 1997 graduate of Pitzer College in Claremont with degrees in political science and education.

Career: Assembly speaker, 2004-08; elected to the Assembly, 2002; director of government affairs for the Los Angeles Unified School District, 2000-02; political director for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, 1996-2000; previously worked for the Utility Workers of America and One Stop Immigration Center, where, among other assignments, he taught English to immigrants.

After an expected stint in the private sector, he could choose from an array of political options, including perhaps a bid for mayor of his hometown, Núñez said in an interview.

“I have deep roots in San Diego. I have a lot of friends there, and San Diegans have been great to me,” said Núñez, 41. “It's a city that has so much potential. With a strong leader, there is so much that could be done.”

Perhaps, but he's more closely identified with the megalopolis to the north. After graduating from San Diego High School and attending the University of California San Diego, Núñez, the son of a former bracero worker from Mexico, moved to Los Angeles at age 22. There he became an organizer and later political director for the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. He has pretty much been there ever since, and later graduated from Pitzer College in Claremont.

He has often been mentioned as a future mayoral candidate, but in Los Angeles. Otherwise, some suggest he would be a good fit for a Los Angeles-area state Senate seat that will open up in two years. His options also could include a statewide race for a constitutional office.

Núñez's political future may be largely defined, if not dictated, by his record as the longest-serving Assembly speaker in the term-limits era. After Willie Brown stepped down in 1995, no one had held the post for more than a single two-year term.

Núñez leaves the speaker's office after four years with his name attached to landmark legislation to curb emissions blamed for global warming, a measure that promises to lower prescription drug costs for millions of poor Californians and another that opened up the cable television market to telecommunications giants AT&T and Verizon.

He negotiated legislation that raised the state's minimum wage to $8 an hour and resisted budget cuts in social services, education and other programs that directly benefit areas like his central Los Angeles district and San Diego's Logan Heights neighborhood, where he grew up.

“In that sense, for many working families, for much of the state's poor, not only in his district, he has to be seen as a strong champion,” said Jaime Regalado, director of the Pat Brown Institute at California State University Los Angeles.

But Núñez and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger failed to reach their unified goal of adopting a universal health care plan for California. His four-year pursuit of a term-limits overhaul that would have extended his speakership was drubbed by voters in February.

By then, he had suffered a nasty split with factions of the labor base that was the driving force behind his election to the Assembly in 2002 and the speakership two years later.

His final year also has been clouded by allegations that he blew thousands of dollars in campaign contributions on expensive wine, hotel rooms and other lavish purchases, often while traveling abroad on what he says were legitimate trade missions.

Núñez blames his enemies for much of that controversy. He infuriated leaders of the hotel and restaurant employees union UNITE HERE when he refused to block multibillion-dollar gambling deals for five Southern California tribes, including Sycuan of El Cajon and Pechanga of Temecula.

The union wanted stronger organizing rules for labor in the compacts. But after holding up the agreements for nearly a year, Núñez let them go forward last summer. Jack Gribbon, state political director of UNITE HERE, called the move by his once-close friend “an outrageous betrayal of the working poor.”

Núñez said he concluded that the state needed the hundreds of millions of dollars a year the tribes had agreed to pay for the right to expand their casinos.

In the months since, the union has orchestrated a campaign to destroy him, Núñez alleged.

“There was a concerted effort, not only to diminish my power as speaker – I think there was a concerted effort to try to put me in jail, and it failed,” Núñez said. “HERE was definitely behind this.”

Gribbon flatly denied the allegation.

“Not only is Fabian a loser, but he's become paranoid in his losses,” Gribbon said. “He is the architect of his downfall, nobody else.”

The state Fair Political Practices Commission has opened investigations in response to formal complaints about Núñez's use of campaign funds and other contributions solicited for a charitable group he reportedly controlled.

Núñez contends that he was cleared by a recent audit of one of his campaign accounts by the state Franchise Tax Board. But an FPPC spokesman said that audit didn't cover the same time period or activities cited in the two complaints.

His adversaries say the split with UNITE HERE and the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor has weakened Núñez politically. As evidence, they point to his apparent inability to hand off his open 46th District seat to a top aide, Ricardo Lara. The June primary in his heavily Democratic district is now widely expected to be won by labor organizer John Perez.

Núñez said he supports Perez and argued that his district race isn't a fair measure of his political strength.

“When I walked in the door, I had some very strong allies, and as I leave, I think I have very strong allies, except the makeup of those allies is different. It's more diverse.

“When I came in, it was labor ... but along the way, I've made a lot of other friends, including political allies who you wouldn't think would be my political allies, like the governor.”

After some initial testing of wills, Núñez and the celebrity governor, a Republican, developed a friendship and mutual respect that helped produce the notable compromises on global warming, the minimum wage and other legislation.

The relationship prompted Schwarzenegger to endorse Núñez's unsuccessful February ballot measure to modify term limits, Proposition 93, even though he failed to deliver the redistricting reform the governor earlier insisted on.

The governor spoke fondly of Núñez last week as the woman the outgoing speaker backed to replace him, Democrat Karen Bass of Los Angeles, was sworn in Tuesday.

“He has been an extraordinary partner,” Schwarzenegger said. “He's honest, he's totally reliable and he always represented the people.”

Other Republicans also said they enjoyed working with Núñez.

“I've always had a very good relationship with him,” said Assemblyman George Plescia, a San Diego Republican and former minority leader of the house. “We negotiated the bonds and had a budget on time. I felt he was just very direct and honest with me.”

Alberto Torrico, a Newark Democrat who had been a Núñez lieutenant, said Democrats haven't had a better four-year run in the Assembly for a long time.

“Global warming, minimum-wage increase, prescription drugs, all the things Democrats care about we've been working on successfully because of the speaker's leadership,” Torrico said.

In the process, Núñez “raised the status of the Assembly to at least even with the Senate, which had not been the case,” Torrico said. “And he's been a tremendous fundraiser.”

That's something of which Núñez seems particularly proud. He can quickly recite totals from each of his years as speaker. In a little more than four years, he raised well above $50 million for both Assembly and ballot initiative campaigns.

Assembly Democrats don't appear to have much to show for all that money. During Núñez's tenure, they didn't add any seats to the 48 they hold in the 80-member Assembly.

Núñez looks at it differently.

“I didn't lose any and, if you think about it, those were two very tough election years,” he said.

Núñez will leave the Democratic Party with more than $4 million for future Assembly races, party spokesman Roger Salazar confirmed. But he's holding on to more than $6.4 million in campaign donations. State law restricts the use of such surplus campaign funds to political purposes or contributions to qualified charities or nonprofits.

That fat balance could finance his future political forays, or ballot measures on the term-limits, redistricting and other government reforms Núñez has introduced.